last.fm

For a while now I’ve been using a service called last.fm. Basically it (a program called a scrobbler) monitors what music I listen to and compiles statistics. I only do it because I find statistics interesting, and often I surprise myself that I’ve listened to lots of an artist that I never really considered one of my favourites, for example.

last.fm can also recommend other music you might like, based on your taste which it works out from what you’ve listened to recently. I don’t bother with this because I don’t like being told what to do 😛

last.fm is free to join and the scrobbler will run on many platforms. I currently scrobble on:

• Rhythmbox running on Fedora at home
• Windows Media Center running on Vista at home
• iTunes on Mac OS X at work

Of course, as with every similar site, there is a widget you can embed into your website, Facebook page, etc, etc. So here’s mine.

table.lfmWidgetchart_e253252de57b75555e909a7ea04972f8 td {margin:0 !important;padding:0 !important;border:0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetchart_e253252de57b75555e909a7ea04972f8 tr.lfmHead a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/header/chart/topartists_regular_red.png) no-repeat 0 0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetchart_e253252de57b75555e909a7ea04972f8 tr.lfmEmbed object {float:left;}table.lfmWidgetchart_e253252de57b75555e909a7ea04972f8 tr.lfmFoot td.lfmConfig a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat 0px 0 !important;;}table.lfmWidgetchart_e253252de57b75555e909a7ea04972f8 tr.lfmFoot td.lfmView a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat -85px 0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetchart_e253252de57b75555e909a7ea04972f8 tr.lfmFoot td.lfmPopup a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat -159px 0 !important;}

If you’re really interested in seeing more of my musical history, my Music Profile has many more views. You can even compare your musical tastes to mine!

No, really. I’m not interested in comparing tastes or building a network of friends, and I don’t expect you to find my history interesting. I just scrobble because I find my personal results interesting. Give it a go; you might too.